Detective Tsukauchi left with the same sobriety with which he had arrived, leaving in the house a trail of gravity. The door closed with a discreet click, but in Mitsuki's ears it sounded like a verdict.
Katsuki remained motionless in the middle of the living room, his fists hanging at his sides with a tension that threatened to tear him apart. There was no anger this time; only a kind of mute devastation that bent him imperceptibly, as if he carried the weight of something he didn't know how to put into words.
His mother took a cautious step toward him.
"Son…"
Her voice rolled out softly, almost afraid of breaking him further. Katsuki didn't even react. His eyes seemed dimmed, reduced to wet embers.
"Katsuki, look at me for a moment."
He barely blinked, as if emerging from an abyss. Then he inhaled sharply, and without a word, headed toward his room. The sound of his steps ascended, one after another… slow, dispirited. Mitsuki felt a pang of helplessness stab her chest.
"Katsuki, wait—"
But he was already pushing his bedroom door. He didn't slam it; he closed it slowly, with a gentleness that was extremely strange for him.
Mitsuki hesitated only a moment before knocking on the door with her knuckles.
"Son… I know this is hard. But you can't carry it alone. Let me in, okay?"
There was a brief silence, then a broken response, without anger and without strength.
"Leave me alone."
"Katsuki…"
"Please."
That (please) disarmed her. She hadn't heard it from him since he was little.
Mitsuki rested her forehead against the door. She wanted to say something else, some comfort, some word capable of reaching him… but nothing sounded real enough for that moment.
"Alright… but if you need anything, anything at all, I'll be right here."
There was no answer.
Mitsuki went downstairs with her heart tight, while behind the door Katsuki let the silence wrap around him like a coarse blanket, unable to decide whether he wanted to scream or cry.
And in the somber stillness of his room, the name Izuku burned in his mind like an echo he didn't know how to silence.
"Everything is my fault… all of this is my fault… my fault! I'm the one who caused Izuku to disappear for two years!"
The sound of his voice, broken and shaky, bounced off the walls.
Tears began to fall before he could stop them.
'If I hadn't been so cruel… if I hadn't pushed him, insulted him, humiliated him… if I had just stopped…'
He felt the thoughts pierce him with precision. He let himself slide down until he was sitting on the floor, his back pressed against the door as if he needed something to hold him up.
"Sorry… Deku… forgive me…" he murmured, hiding his face in his hands.
'This shouldn't have happened. None of this should have happened. And now that he's back… I don't even know how to look him in the eye.'
His knees trembled, even in the memory. Because the more he tried to expel that scene from his mind, the clearer it returned: the park, the afternoon, the pale summer light filtering through the trees.
It was the day everything changed.
The day Katsuki made the stupidest, cruelest, most irreparable mistake of his life.
The sun fell over the park with an empty, almost white light that distorted the shadows of the trees into long, thin figures. Katsuki walked along the dirt path with his two classmates, still laughing about something he had said a minute ago, but which no longer mattered.
Katsuki wasn't in the mood for jokes. He had that electricity under his skin that made him irritable for no clear reason. A murmur in his head, insistent. A discomfort he couldn't name.
"Hey, Bakugo, wanna go kick the ball?" asked the taller one.
"I'm not in the mood," Katsuki replied, without looking at them.
The shorter boy let out a brief laugh. "What's wrong with you now? Did you have another fight with that weird kid?"
Katsuki clenched his teeth. They didn't even need to say his name.
Deku.
'Stop thinking about him.'
Katsuki kicked a stone off the path, irritated with himself for still going in circles over the matter.
"You're always tense when we talk about that kid," the tall one commented with his brutal honesty. "Honestly, I don't know why he bothers you so much. He can't even defend himself."
"Because he's useless," Katsuki snapped. "And even then… even then… damn it!"
He bit his tongue.
'And even then he keeps looking at me like I'm the one who's wrong.'
His friends exchanged a look, uncomfortable, while following Katsuki.
The park was emptier than usual. The damp grass gave off a earthy smell that blended with the distant sound of a highway. There was a strange silence for a summer afternoon.
The big boy lifted his gaze and pointed toward the swings.
"Isn't that Midoriya?"
The name fell on him like a tangible weight. Katsuki turned and saw the small figure sitting alone, moving his feet just slightly, as if trying to match a thought too big for his legs.
"Don't bother him," said the smaller boy from behind. "He doesn't look well today."
But Katsuki wasn't listening anymore.
'I'm going to ask him why he's here. I'm going to tell him to stop following me. To stop looking at me like that. To—'
Izuku lifted his head at that moment.
His green eyes met his own. Soft, nervous, surprised eyes. The real expression of a child who still trusted him, despite everything.
"Ah… K-Kacchan," said Izuku, with a tiny smile that formed and fell apart at the same time. "I-I didn't know you were here…"
That sincere stutter, that fragile sound of his voice… that was the last thing Katsuki heard from him before ruining everything.
He took another step.
Izuku slid off the swing with his usual clumsiness, holding the rope. When he looked up, he gave Katsuki a small, timid smile, made of wasted goodwill.
"K-Kacchan… I just—"
That brittle voice was like a lit match dropped into a pool of gasoline.
"You idiot!" Katsuki exploded, unable to contain the anger he had built up since morning. "I told you I didn't want to see you here again!"
Izuku stepped back half a step, not out of fear but confusion: that painful mixture he always had when Katsuki's mood shifted.
"Kacchan, I… I just wanted to talk. I didn't want—"
But Katsuki was already on top of him.
The blond advanced with a fierce, almost automatic impulse, as if the simple act of seeing him breathe pushed his body forward. Izuku opened his mouth to say something else, to explain himself, to apologize for a crime that didn't exist… but he didn't get the chance.
The blast was explosive.
BOOM!
The explosion hurled him backward.
Izuku's small body collapsed onto the ground with a thud, rolling a few inches over the dirt. A harsh smell, smoke, gunpowder, scorched skin snaked through the warm afternoon air.
Katsuki felt adrenaline rush through his veins with a repugnant satisfaction.
Izuku gasped, dazed. He barely lifted a trembling hand, as if trying to get up.
"Kac…chan…" his voice came out like ashes.
Katsuki felt a strange knot in his throat. He erased it with fury.
"I warned you," he spat. "I don't want you near me. Ever!"
His two classmates looked at him from afar, uneasy, not approaching. They knew something had been wrong even before the explosion, but no one wanted to intervene when Katsuki entered that abrasive mode.
Izuku tried to get up, staggering. He had his hands on the ground, his fingers muddy, his breathing ragged. He still looked at him, still sought him out with that same silent insistence Katsuki had always wanted to crush.
That look set him on fire inside.
Without thinking, Katsuki advanced again.
"You don't get it, do you?! I told you to get lost!" he shouted as a second explosion burst from his palm, closer.
BOOM!
The impact kicked up dust and dry leaves.
Izuku fell onto his side, a faint groan escaping him. This time he didn't even try to stand immediately.
Katsuki took a deep breath. Something in his chest burned strangely: a mix of victory and vertigo. But Izuku, stupid as always, tried to stand again. Slow, shaky. And that stubbornness, that absurd impulse to remain standing… only made Katsuki even angrier.
"Stop it already!" shouted the smaller boy from behind, nervous.
Another blast.
BOOM!
Izuku fell to his knees.
"W-Why…?" he murmured, barely audible.
Katsuki took another step, raising his arm as if to finish him off. He didn't think about consequences, or injuries, or the fact that this was no longer a game. He only thought about silencing that voice, that look, that presence that had always followed him.
But then he felt hands grabbing his shoulders.
"Bakugo, enough!"
"You already hit him! Stop!"
His classmates held him back halfway. The pressure wasn't strong enough to force him back, but enough to stop him for a second. A second in which Katsuki's ragged breathing clashed with the trembling silence of the park.
Izuku was facing the ground, his green hair stuck to his forehead, breathing as if remembering how was an effort. He lifted his head slightly. His gaze was cloudy, but… even then… he looked at him with the same mix of fear and hope Katsuki had always hated.
"I… just wanted…" Izuku managed to say.
Katsuki clenched his teeth.
"Let's go," the blond boy growled, finally slipping out of his friends' arms.
"And… him?" asked the smaller one, looking at Izuku uneasily.
"Leave him," Katsuki said. "He's not our problem."
He turned around. He didn't hear the faint sound Izuku made when trying to get up again, the slight tremble in his legs before collapsing once more.
Katsuki just kept walking. Convincing himself that the normal afternoon would continue as if nothing had happened. That Izuku, as always, would stand up, go home, and see him tomorrow at school.
But that afternoon had stopped being normal long ago. And when the two classmates, uneasy from the prolonged stillness, finally looked back…
Izuku was no longer there.